


Heavy with Ghosts

by molo (esteefee)



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Angst, April Showers Challenge, First Time, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-11
Updated: 2005-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:59:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/molo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack died thinking Hutch had betrayed him.  Hutch has trouble living with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy with Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to CC for the comma-maddening beta.

**Part 1: Jack**

I've never been one to hold onto my past. It's never seemed worth very much to me, loaded with so many bad memories that the good ones are drowned out by the insistent pain noise.

But Jack was one of the good ones. Maybe the best. And maybe that's why it's so hard for me to reconcile his messy ending.

He died thinking I'd betrayed him.

When the bodies were counted, it was six all told. The newspapers focused on the five beautiful showgirls, of course, and Jack was just a footnote, an unlucky victim of fate. Maybe the unluckiest. He'd been robbed of years while fighting his tumor, and that nutball Eugene had stolen the last days Jack had on earth.

And I failed to stop him. I failed my oldest friend.

Calling his parents was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my career. Listening to their surprise at hearing from one of Jack's old friends turn into sad resignation. Thinking the whole time that if I'd just known earlier, I could somehow have saved him from the circumstances that conspired to destroy him before his time.

After we wrapped up with Cameron, and before we left Las Vegas, I arranged to have Jack's body sent back home to his folks in Minnesota. Then Starsky and I climbed into the red convertible for the drive back to Bay City.

He's beside me now, in the passenger seat. Asleep, of course. When they tell you Vegas is the town that never sleeps, they forget to mention that _you_ won't either.

Except Jack, of course. Jack is resting forever.

I wish Starsky were awake. I need to talk to him. But I don't think he wants to hear it. 'I'm sick of your stinkin' loyalty to your friends,' he said to me at the hospital, as if we weren't on the same side. That burned me. But at the same time, I was desperate to convince him of Jack's innocence. I guess I needed him to like Jack.

Of course, I'd never told Starsky about him, so how could he know? I've never been able to talk about Jack to anyone. He's existed in my mind in that lit corner of youth and that one golden summer when I was truly happy for the first time, just finally old enough to be free from my parents' control. And Jack knew so many things. He was older, and somehow wiser, and so beautiful. Perfect, really.

And, of course, I've never told Starsky—I've never told anyone, hardly even whispered it to myself—that if only we'd had a little more time together, I might've...well. Who knows? We were so close that summer, attached at the hip and shoulder. We would lounge beside the double pools at the resort, back to back in our high lifeguard chairs, and talk about any and everything, soaking up the sun and the laughter.

Maybe I'm just lying to myself that I would ever have found the courage to ask Jack if he might be willing. I thought about it maybe a hundred times. But I'd never been attracted to a guy before, didn't even really understand what was happening to me, except that I wanted to be near him all the time. I remember thinking how unnatural it felt—but at the same time utterly normal—to want to be with him.

So all summer long I toyed with the idea of asking him, trying to imagine the perfect moment. Then sanity would strike me, and I would know how absurd it was to think that Jack, the guy with a sun bunny on each arm all that long summer, could need or want anything from his scrawny, younger sidekick.

But I'd always wanted to ask.

The sun is setting, and the long shadows are racing out over the desert. It's already grown cooler, and soon we'll have to stop and put the top up. I look over at Starsky. He's still zonked out, a sunburn on his nose beneath that ridiculously touristy visor of his.

I reach one arm over the seat and snag my jacket to drape it over him, while my other hand keeps us steered down the endlessly straight road.

ooOoo

The next morning we debrief Dobey, and manage to evade the whole money issue with only a slight reprimand. As shitty as I'm feeling about Jack, I'm awfully glad that Vicky, at least, came out on top from all this, if only because I know how much Starsky liked her.

His friend got a much better deal than mine did.

Later that day the phone rings at our desk and Starsky answers it, then gives me a look and hands it over.

"This is Hutchinson."

"Hello Kenneth. This is Eudora Mitchell. Jack's mother?"

As if I had forgotten her name from one day to the next. But that's how wealthy people are, always quick to try to avert any potentially embarrassing situation.

"Yes, Mrs. Mitchell. Did you...that is—" I clear my throat. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, Jack's remains arrived this afternoon, dear. I'm calling to settle accounts."

For one absurd moment I think she's about to call me out, like in some ancient dueling tradition or something, for letting her son be killed.

"Accounts?" I manage to say.

"Yes, for the charges, Kenneth. I need the total amount, and the address where to send the check. For transporting Jack."

"Oh, that won't be necessary, Mrs. Mitchell. We've—that is, I've already paid the bill."

I hear her sigh, and she says, delicately, "Then give me your address, Kenneth, and the amount, if you please."

And just like that I know she won't let me pay for it, won't let me make even that much reparation for my failure. My chest aches, and my face burns a little.

But I try again. "It's the least I could do, Mrs. Mitchell. Please don't worry about it."

"Oh, no, dear. Really, I do insist," she says. I envision her with her rapier, at dawn, and I give her the total and my address, keeping my voice low.

When I hang up, though, Starsky is looking at me, and I know he's heard the whole thing. I try to get back to work, but it's hard going. I keep thinking of Jack, and his small, sad death. And I keep feeling Starsky's eyes on me.

I manage to escape after work while Starsky is tied up talking to someone, and I head home, wanting to be alone. Seeing Jack has stirred up some things I haven't wanted to think about. In far too many years.

The phone is already ringing when I walk in the door.

"Yeah?"

"You took off. I thought we could hit the Pits. We gotta give Huggy hell for duding us up in those stupid outfits."

"Starsk, I'm not...I have things to do."

"'Things.'"

"Yeah, you know—stuff."

"Stuff like digging a hole and sticking your blond head in it?"

I swear, the guy is worse than a mother. Not that I would know.

"Stuff like watering my plants, taking out the trash, maybe doing my laundry now that we're back."

"Sounds terrific. I'll be right over." _Click._

Shit.

Isn't he fucking sick of me yet? We just spent almost a week in each other's pockets.

But I know why he's coming. And maybe this will put us back to where we were before Vegas. Because we'd been slightly out of sync this week, making some rookie mistakes in trying to solve the murders. At cross-purposes, I guess. Because I knew, in my heart, that Jack couldn't be guilty. But Starsky hadn't believed me.

He comes over just as I finish making my salad. I don't bother making him any, figuring he'll be fending for himself and, sure enough, when I open the door he has a pizza in one hand and a six-pack dangling from the other.

"Hey," he says, and cocks his head at me in the doorway as if he thinks I might not let him in. I give him a quick smile and lead the way into the kitchen and start setting the table while he drops the beer in the fridge. He offers me one, but I shake my head. I need it on straight, tonight.

"Good to be back, huh?" he says.

"Yeah." I start in on my salad. It's the perfect thing to keep my mouth too busy to talk. And Starsky, for his part, starts munching his pizza, so we end up eating without saying much.

It's not until later, when I get up to clear the table, that he says, "I'm sorry about Jack, Hutch."

I have to be careful putting the plates in the sink, because suddenly my grip doesn't feel so sure. This is the first time he's said anything about it. And he sounds dead sincere.

"At least he went out fighting," I say gruffly. There's a trace of anger in my voice. "He was trying to help Vicky...." It was something we had learned after Vicky had come to and given us her account. A nasty part of me wonders if that's why Starsky is respecting his memory now, when in the hospital he didn't even seem to care that Jack was dead.

I don't understand why it hurts me so damned much that Starsky didn't like Jack.

"Yeah," Starsky says. "He was a good guy, Hutch."

I turn and face him. "He _was._ He was a good friend to me, when I needed one bad. He was my only friend. And he meant a hell of a lot to me. More than I can tell you—" It all comes out in a rush before I cut myself off, and Starsky's eyes widen in surprise.

"He was my _best_ friend," I say, repeating what I'd said in the observation room, and just like then, I hear my voice break on the final word.

"Yeah, okay," Starsky says, sounding helpless, and his head drops, the dark curls on his forehead hiding his eyes from me. "I'm...I'm real sorry, Hutch."

And I don't need to see his eyes to know he intends more than sympathy with the words. And I feel like shit for rounding on him.

"Thanks," I say, meaning it. "I'm sorry, too."

He lifts his head and slouches back in his chair, eyeing me. The look makes me uncomfortable for some reason, and I turn back to the sink and start doing the dishes.

Starsky leaves soon after, giving me a slap on the arm before he goes, and I smile at him before he turns and runs down to the Torino.

That night, before I fall asleep, I find myself thinking about Jack again, and of that one time we were changing in the _cabana_ when I turned and could swear he'd been looking at my ass. I remember how hot my face got, and how I deliberately turned my back again, just in case.

Just in case there was something there that he wanted to see.

ooOoo

**Part 2: Gillian**

This is the third time the phone has rung in the past hour. I know who it is, of course. Persistent bastard. I'd know his ring anywhere.

As soon as we bagged that slime Grossman and finished booking him and his parody of a mother, I got the hell out of Metro. I didn't give Starsky a chance to corner me like I knew he wanted to. At first I thought I'd go to a bar and get hammered, but that's not my style. Getting drunk only dulls the pain, and I really need it right now. I need it to remind me that nothing beautiful lasts. That I was careless and forgot, for a brief moment, that love doesn't work for me. Not like that.

And, anyway, if I'm drunk I can't think, can't find my way out of this trap I'm in. For a while I was so happy in it, in there with the red balloons and Gillian, and her smile, and those eyes that seemed so guileless and clean. And that honey skin.

Writer, my ass.

She was everything I wanted her to be, I now realize. She was sweet, and tremulous, and romantic. Something I needed so desperately. I don't know why, but it feels like she was my last chance.

It felt so good that I couldn't swallow the truth, when it came. Of all the things I can't forgive her for, the worst is she made me turn on him. Him, of all people.

He held me tighter than anyone's ever held me in my life, and he said, "You're the best friend I got in the whole world." And I believe it.

I believe it.

And the phone won't stop ringing.

ooOoo

She says, "You got a bingo!" and I know right away that I've been set up. It turns out her name is Sue, and she's a friend of Nancy's from graduate school. I remember being absolutely astounded when Starsky told me Nancy's in academics. But it's true; she's studying to be a biologist.

The world is a very strange place.

Sue is...nice. And I say that with about as much condescension as you can imagine. Maybe Starsky's tired of babysitting me and wants to foist me off, have a break. He sure the hell deserves one. So I'll go along. I'll smile and say sweet things to her and take her to bed so he doesn't have to worry about me anymore.

God knows he's put up with me for a month now, and my moodiness, and my anger. And I don't know why. I don't know why he bothers. Lately I'm nothing but a chainsaw on wheels. But almost every time I snap at him, his one cheek will lift, and his lips will press together in that way that tells me he's trying, again, not to smile. Or he'll say something he knows will get me going, letting me blow off steam safely. He knows it's not him I'm angry at, I guess.

Starsky's just got a 2-10 split, and Sue is whispering something to me about how she can do 'em, too. Apparently she used to be a gymnast.

"Uh, Starsk? Sue has something she needs to take care of at home."

"Yeah, I have to go feed my cat," she says, giggling.

Great. She has a cat.

Starsky looks relieved, so I know I guessed right. And, actually, he looks a little surprised, which amuses me for about a second. Did he think I was going to hang up my cleats just because Gillian is dead?

Oh, God. Gillian.

I realize only after I feel his hand on my shoulder that I've stopped changing out of my bowling shoes and have just been sitting there staring into space. Sue is saying something in a worried tone to Nancy, who suddenly pipes up about buying another round of beer.

"No, let's go," I say. I finish changing and grab Sue's pair along with mine, moving out from under Starsky's hand while I do it. I get up, but I don't look at him as Sue grabs her coat.

"What do I owe you?" I ask him. He knows I'm not talking about the lane.

"Not a thing," he says.

ooOoo

She's warm, and sweet, and wet, so very wet.

And she doesn't seem to mind that I never once open my eyes.

ooOoo

"This is the third one this week!" Starsky says, and I can hear the contained anger in his voice. Another teenager, dead from a heroin overdose. Someone out there is supplying these kids with cheap but deadly shit. Making money from misery. Such an old profession.

Maybe the second-oldest.

We work the scene closely, even though it's obviously an O.D. But you never know what you might find. And Starsky does find something. He has sharp eyes, my partner.

He hooks a man's billfold that had been concealed under the waistband of her skirt. Obviously not hers, but the question is, where did she get it?

Inside, there's a wad of crumpled cash, and a card with an address on it. Some pricey hotel downtown.

Funny, I didn't make her for a hooker. But then, I never do.

ooOoo

We talk to the john. He's sweating—so worried his wife will find out about his afternoon delight that he's practically vomiting everything he knows. I let Starsky go to work on him while I sit back and take notes. Unfortunately, the guy doesn't know much about the girl, just that she was so hungry when she arrived that she insisted on being fed before doing her job.

The john is so very proud of himself for ordering her a fine dinner before using his underage whore. Starsky can read my disgust, and he wraps it up quick and we get out of there.

"He didn't even know the name of the service he got her from. Let's check with the hotel staff," I say. But he and I both know that will likely be a dead-end. No fancy concierge worth his or her weight will admit to the hotel supporting such a seedy industry.

Sure enough, Mr. Colleen is smooth, implacable, and oh so very British, and we don't get a squeak out of him. Starsky makes some rumblings about health codes or some such, but Colleen is unflappable. He has far too many VIP guests with big clout downtown. We're getting nowhere, fast.

So we roll.

Back at Metro, Starsky is strung like a wire as we make calls and try to track down more info on our latest victim. He really isn't fond of this part, the calling and coaxing and culling of information. I don't mind it, not really. Because I know once I've pulled it together and fed it into that crazy head of his, he'll chew it up and then spit out something new. It's what we do.

But today is a total bust, and we end our shift no closer than we were this morning.

At least all the busywork has kept me from thinking.

ooOoo

Two of them today, two more kids with their lives sliced off at the knees. And one of them, oh God, she could be Gillian, only fifteen years younger. Same unusual color to her hair, a touch straighter and hanging limp. The same high cheekbones and heart-shaped face. Delicate hands with long, dirty nails, and dark blue eyes staring so wide at nothing at all.

I back away quick but catch Starsky eyeing me, so I force myself to go through the routine, listing visible details, keeping my voice even. I have no idea if I'm convincing or not, only that I badly need to keep this away from work. Work is the only damned thing keeping me sane.

Fuck. It could _be_ her.

I force my eyes onto the other kid, the young boy leaning up against the brick wall, a hypo still stuck in his arm. He must've shot up right after her. If he'd waited just a few minutes for his pop he would've realized that the junk was bad news.

Their dealer, whoever it is, is pushing death. It makes no sense from a pure business standpoint. No repeat customers.

But maybe it was a bad batch and he just hasn't caught on to the fact that he's killing his own clients.

"Meat wagon's here," Starsky says, real soft, and I look up. I've been staring at the hypo in the kid's arm. Maybe Starsky thinks I'm reminiscing about the good ol' days with Forest. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd sooner shoot myself in the head with my revolver than go back there.

I get up from my crouch and dust off my pants, still looking down. The kid's eyes are closed, thank God. My own stray over to the girl, and it hits me again like a shock. She really could be Gillian's younger sister, the resemblance is that stark.

"Let's go," I say, ignoring the fact my voice is thicker than paste. Thankfully, Starsky goes along. I jog back to the Torino, eager to get away.

ooOoo

The dark blue of the girl's eyes follows me into my dreams that night, and she is Gillian, touching me, loving me, her hair a soft fall brushing my chest as she goes down to suck me with that too-talented mouth. I grab her shoulders and pull her up. Her eyes are laughing, and I fall into them, but when I lift my head to kiss those perfect lips, I find they've turned black and shriveled, diseased.

I wake up in a cold sweat. The dark is pressing, and my stomach is knotted, threatening to come up on me. I roll out of bed and go to the bathroom to hover above the toilet just in case. But it passes.

I want to call Starsky, but I don't.

ooOoo

We work like demons, shaking down all our best junkie snitches, trying to get a lead on this pusher. Finally a name comes up—a familiar one, Phoenix. The guy is six foot five if he's an inch, full Indian. He works for that lousy creep, Amboy.

We get a warrant and track Phoenix to some seedy motel off of Sunset. I'm charged up getting out of the car, and Starsky gives me a worried look as we take positions on either side of the flimsy wooden door. He hesitates, but I turn away and knock with my Magnum.

"Yeah?" comes a deep voice, slurred. It sounds like we caught him napping.

"This is the police," I say. "Open up, Phoenix. We've got a warrant."

Starsky shoots me a dark look, I guess expecting me to pull the old pizza delivery trick, but I'm having none of it. I'm going by the book, this time, and this fucker is going down whether he wants it easy or hard.

There's the sound of shuffling on the other side, and I growl, "Open up _now,_ asshole, or we're coming in."

He apparently takes me at my word, because a second later a blast blows a massive hole in the door and takes out part of the jamb right by my stomach. Starsky pulls back, but I kick the door open and whip around the support with my piece leading the way. Phoenix is disappearing with his shotgun into the bathroom, gone before I can get a shot off. But I track along the wall and put a few right where he could be. There's a moan of pain and a heavy thud.

Then I'm in and rolling, Starsky right behind me, but there's no movement. I scout around the door to the bathroom.

The slug had blown a hole in the wall before taking him in the gut. He's lying on the tiled floor, and there's dark blood pooling. One look tells me he's a goner, but I give Starsky a nod to call the ambulance. Then I kneel beside our perp.

"Why..." he gasps out and then groans. His arms are moving weakly, but the lower half of his body not at all. A .357 can be merciful that way.

"That junk you've been pushing is pure death," I tell him quietly. "We got five kids dead in the past week, Phoenix."

His eyes roll, the whites so bright against his ruddy cheeks. He looks like he's trying to say something, but can't muster the strength.

I feel nothing.

I hear Starsky moving behind me, and then his foot appears to nudge the shotgun further away from the guy's hand. Not that Phoenix is capable of even moving a trigger finger right now.

He makes a burbling sound, and then he whispers, "Shit. Just a coupla fucking hustlers...and...whores."

And then I feel something, sure enough, and I'm not sure _what_ I would've done at this point, since the guy is clearly not long for this world, but maybe I could've thought of something to make him hurt even worse, if it weren't for the hands. The hands that rest on my tensed shoulders, holding me down, holding me back.

The hands that keep touching me, all through the wrap up and then back at the station, slipping around my shoulders once when Starsky gets up to get a cup of coffee. And then, later, patting my stomach after we put on our jackets to leave for the day.

But I feel nothing.

ooOoo

He takes me home and tries to follow me in, but I block him. I can hear the hurt behind his rough, "Be that way, Blondie," and it makes me pause.

"It's not you," I say, looking down, then to the side, anywhere but into the eyes that I know can burn right though the ice if I let them. "I need...I need to be alone."

"Don't, Hutch," he says. "Don't shut me out."

What a joke. As if I could. As if he weren't already in so deep under my skin I'd need a deepwater excavation team to go in there and haul him out again.

And even then, they'd better bring some heavy machinery.

So I sigh and let him in, not missing the quick grin or the way, after I've stripped off my holster, his gun sits beside mine on the coffee table. Comfortable.

But I'm still trying damned hard not to feel it. Gillian is still with me and I can't shake her, and I don't understand why. It's like I feel her ghost between us, mute and stubborn.

When I don't say anything, he turns on the tube, and I get up soon after and make us a vegetable scramble, throwing in some zucchini that have seen better days. I know he's humoring me when he doesn't give me crap about it as we sit down at the table to eat.

But then he says, "You could've made it go down easier today." His voice is non-judgmental.

"Yeah, maybe," I say. The man is dead, and he really wasn't evil, just low. We found bags of smack in his motel room. Turned out the junk was cut with too much cornstarch, and that's what killed the kids. Asshole probably didn't have any powdered milk on hand.

He didn't mean to kill them. And I didn't mean to kill _him_ , either, just stop him, and that was how it went down. I feel the familiar wave of desolate sickness at the thought. One of the things about being a cop that I'll never get used to—the finality of the solution.

I try not to reveal anything, but Starsky leans back in his chair and puts down his fork, saying "Was it the girl? That why we went at him like that?"

No dummy, my partner. Not by a long shot.

"She was too young." My voice has gone strained on me, and I drink some water, almost choking on it when Starsky says,

"And she could've been Gillian's baby sister."

When I'm through coughing, he's still staring at me. I realize with utter surprise that their eyes are the same color blue. Gillian's…and Starsky's. Why hadn't I ever noticed that? Starsky's are just a touch deeper; Gillian's had that tiny hint of gray. But it's close enough that I don't understand why I never noticed.

They're looking at me now, still patiently waiting. It irritates me. He never wants to talk about his shit when it's bugging him, but I always seem to be fair game.

"Let's agree to not talk about it," I say, and I can hear how cold I am.

I look away, but I can still hear the flash of hurt in his quiet, "That's not how it works."

"Yeah, huh?"

"Yeah. See, first you have to get irritated, and then I keep bugging you, and eventually you're supposed to blow and give it up."

"Yeah, well, I'm off the script tonight, pal." I get up and dump the rest of my eggs in the sink, pushing them down the garbage disposal. The noise is a welcome interruption. I let it run and then start washing the dishes.

But it does no good at all, because when I dry my hands and turn around, Starsky is still sitting there watching me, his legs sprawled in those worn jeans of his, and his hand resting on the table, toying with his root beer bottle.

 _Why can't you? Why can't you just let her go?_ His eyes are asking me. But how can I explain it to him when I don't even understand, myself? Just that she's stayed with me all these long months, and I still can't make any sense of it—of why I hadn't known what she was, or why her abrupt departure left me tied in knots that I can't even see to untangle.

"Is it that she lied to you?" he says out loud. He's been traveling the same mental road, as so often happens with us.

I take a breath, then say, "Maybe. Maybe I wonder what would've happened if she'd told me the truth."

And I _have_ wondered, and the fact is I just don't know. Don't know if I would've forgiven her, or throttled her myself for letting me make love to her, touch her with my hands, and my mouth, where so many men had license to do the same.

For a small fee, of course.

"You would've forgiven her," he says confidently, and his eyes shine with it. His belief moves me, but I'm not so certain, myself. I pull out a chair and drop into it, feeling incredibly weary.

"I don't know," I say finally, and he makes a grimace.

"It doesn't matter, Hutch. It didn't happen. You gotta worry about what _did_."

But that's no good, either. Because what did happen is intolerable. At least, what I know about it.

"Maybe that's part of it. I don't even _know_ what happened, or why," I say, frustrated. "I don't know what she was planning, or why Grossman came after her…" Suddenly I realize that's the answer. I need to find out. I need to _know_ , or I'll just be hanging here on the edge of 'why' for the rest of my damned life.

But for some reason Starsky is shaking his head, and his eyes are down, hooded by his thick brows.

"I do, Starsk. I need to find out." I get up, feeling energized again, and I walk over to the table and pick up his Beretta. "I'm gonna hit the sack now, if it's okay with you. I have a lot to do tomorrow."

Starsky gets up slowly and puts out his hand. I give him his gun and his jacket.

"What about Sunday?" he asks me. "We're supposed to do car stuff. You really need new brakes for that tub of yours."

"Yeah, okay. I'll come by early and we'll head over to the shop."

He nods, and then he's gone.

ooOoo

First thing this morning after my run I head over to Terminal Island and the federal lock-up where they sent Grossman. I sign in and hand over my gun and wait. Endlessly. Seems Saturday is the day for visiting your favorite felons.

Finally they point me to a room, and I take a seat in front of the glass. Grossman is already there and waiting, his twitch in full force. I pick up the black intercom handset. It smells like stale cigarettes.

"Hutchinson."

That gravelly voice of his makes my trigger finger itch. "How's it going, Grossman," I ask him, trying my damnedest not to sneer.

"It's the worst and you know it. Only reason I agreed to see you is that maybe I can get you to do something for me."

"Yeah, huh? Well, you'll have to do a little something for me first, Grossman."

"Like what?" he asks, his cheek leaping like a fish out of water.

"Just answer some questions. Can't hurt you, since you already got your deal." Grossman had rolled over quickly as soon as we threatened to lay the hammer down on his dear mommy.

"Okay. But only if you promise to get a letter to my mom. _Personal_ -like. I don't trust these guys here."

"You got it."

He nods. "So, shoot."

On the drive over I'd been trying to think of the best way to formulate my questions without giving the guy any kind of edge on me. I try the angle I came up with.

"I've been contacted by a half-sister of Gillian's. She wants to know some details about her death."

"Sister, huh? I never knew she had a sister," Grossman says. He laughs shortly, "She as pretty?"

"I don't know," I say, keeping my voice even. "We only spoke on the phone. She wants to know why her sister died."

"She _does_ , does she?"

The emphasis tells me he hasn't fallen for it, but I stick with it.

"Yes. I told her you killed her because she wanted out. But that's not the whole truth, is it? She must've done something to really piss you off."

Grossman leans back in his chair, the cord to the phone stretching tight. God, I hate him in this moment, with that wide, fish-mouth and those watery eyes of his.

"She wanted out, yeah. She thought she could have that—a regular life. What a joke. You know, Hutchinson," Grossman said as he leaned forward again, "she said you were special. Different, somehows, as if you could deal with it if you found out. But you and I both know you never would've taken it. You're a cop. And she was nothing but a sweet, sweet whore."

I can feel the edges of the handset digging into my palm, and it creaks a little under the strain of my grip. Through my rage I notice his eyes are blinking fast, like camera shutters. I ease my hold.

"That the reason, Grossman? You found out she was dating a cop? Or was it that she could dare to think she could get out of the life, away from you? That why you killed her? Because she'd had it letting you touch her?"

The twitch was back in force. "She was supposed to do what she was told. I _owned_ her. And then she come in and tells Mom that she's leaving. And then Gillian slaps her—that bitch hit my mom!"

He's practically spitting now, he's that unhinged.

And I understand. She challenged his ownership. And guys like that only think of women as pawns to push around the chessboard. Not to mention the mother thing. That's truly weird.

"She was leaving, then," I ask when he's calmed down. "We found tickets on her, so she must've had some money—"

"I don't know where she got it," he said sullenly. "We kept tabs on all our girls; she shouldn't have been able to save up that much on her own."

"Maybe she earned it writing," I say, really just to myself, but he looks at me and gives a bark of laughter.

"Sure. Sure, Hutchinson. Keep telling yourself that."

I'm suddenly sick to death of the man's face, and the smell of the place, and the hard plastic chair under my ass. "Where's this letter, Grossman?"

"I got it right here," he says, pulling a small envelope out of his pocket. He waves it at the guard and says something, but I'm already hanging up the handset.

"Promise me," he says, his voice muffled but comprehensible. His eyes look suddenly desperate.

I nod abruptly. The guard motions toward the other door and I head out, not looking back.

ooOoo

Next stop is Riverside and the California Institution for Women. They let me keep my gun when they see my badge, which amuses me for some reason. And I get to see Mrs. Grossman in a regular meeting room. No glass.

She's aged. Apparently prison life has not been kind. Her gray wig looks bedraggled and even more wig-like, and the orange coveralls make her face look greenish.

"You got a cigarette?" is the first thing she asks me. I shake my head and she sighs.

"I did bring something for you, Olga," I say. "But I have some questions first."

She tilts her head, almost bird-like, and then nods.

"It's about Gillian," I say. Considering how successful my subterfuge was with her disturbingly Oedipal son, I decide to can the cover. "I want to know what happened—why you two decided to…to finish her off."

Maybe she heard something in my voice, because she considers me a moment, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a limp, homemade cigarette. She lights it up before speaking.

"The little tramp had it coming," she says.

I bristle, and she looks amused. "What, you don't think she was a tramp?"

"Just answer the question, Olga. Or you won't get your treat."

She hears more than the simple threat in my voice, because her eyes sharpen.

"I guess she was right; you _are_ different," she says mockingly. "Listen to the noble cop defending her honor. Was she really that good?"

I stand up quickly, the chair legs squeaking against the floor.

"Oh, sit down, my dear, I'm just having a little fun. We don't get much here, you know?" she says wistfully.

I sit back down. The cigarette smoke is making my eyes itch, but it's also giving me a craving that I haven't had in years.

"Very well, I'll tell you. We had our man track her, and he saw her with you and made you for a cop. Al told her she'd better break it off with you, but she didn't. Of course, you and your partner came by to see us, and I saw then that you would be trouble, in more ways than one. Such a handsome boy, and so earnest." She gave a hoarse little laugh. "Oh, do stop squirming. Surely you must know you're good-looking?"

It's not embarrassment that I feel at that moment, but a crawling sensation on the surface of my skin. The woman is smiling evil.

"I knew then that Gillian would never give you up. But we gave her a chance, we really did. And then she came to me, and told me she was getting out. But I couldn't let her do that to my Al. Not after everything he'd done for her. When he found her on the streets she was _nothing_ , living in a motel room that she traded in shifts with some other girls. Flat on her back eight hours a day for peanuts, and all that beauty going to waste."

It twists something in my gut, hearing about her like that.

"Then Al found her, and we took her in and got her cleaned up. Spent endless hours classing her up, sending her to school, teaching her how to be the perfect lady for the high-class work we had planned for her. But she started getting ideas. Ideas that she was better than us, better than the money that had got her there, if you can believe it. She should've known there's no such thing as a free ride." Olga takes a deep drag on her cigarette, the smoke blooming to obscure her eyes momentarily.

"You would know, wouldn't you, Olga?" I say, and see that I've hit the mark when her face screws up in anger.

"Then she starts seeing you and dares to tell me that she's getting out! As if we didn't own the shoes on her feet, and all that pretty blond hair she was so proud of. Like we hadn't paid for that, too, out of a bottle."

For some reason that hits me hard. I should've known, of course. Nothing that beautiful is real.

"But she was still working for you? Even then?"

"Of course! Just the day before, she tended to a _very_ important client. Just the kind we had groomed her for." Olga stabs her butt out viciously in the ashtray on the table. "So I told Al to take care of her." She spits out, "We could've _owned_ that town, if it weren't for that little tramp. We were so close—"

"You're all wrong," I say, putting the steel in, and she looks up. "You forget: that's my beat, Olga—mine, and my partner's. You had your boys rough up poor Lonely, and it killed him. Even if Gillian and I had never met, Starsky and I would've taken you _down_."

I stand up and pull Grossman's envelope from my pocket, dropping it on the table. I look down at her, and she seems to shrink inside her coveralls, growing more frail by the second.

"Good bye," I say to her staring eyes, and walk out.

On the way to the car, I feel Gillian's silent, sad-eyed ghost beside me. She's growing more substantial; I can see her more clearly now—a knock-kneed teen like the girl I saw in the alleyway, a vulnerable cast to her lips as she spreads her legs for the tenth time, the hundredth, making the rent on the cheap motel room, somehow staying clean where the other working girls failed.

Then Al and his mother came along and gave her a way out of her roach-infested existence. How happy she must have been, seeing it as a golden opportunity. But she was just trading her freedom for a velvet-lined prison.

When I met her, she was all poise and grace. I wonder now if she was ever rewarded when she learned some new polished skill, or if she was ever punished when she failed to perform like the trick pony she was. The carrot, and the stick. And the cocks, one after another, serviced like so many units on an assembly line.

How could she have ever wanted another? How could she have wanted mine in her? How could she want me touching her like so many others, panting, sweaty, greedy for her slick warmth—

I need a fucking drink.

ooOoo

It's nightfall by the time I get back to Bay City, and I go straight to the Pits.

Huggy is eye-bogglingly resplendent in a burgundy velvet suit and a green satin shirt. I'm tempted to ask him if he'll be hitting a gay disco tonight. I've never asked him, but I'm pretty sure he likes to walk on the other side of the street.

Except for Jack, I've never been tempted that way, though I seem to get plenty of offers. Or maybe _because_ I do. It's hard enough being a hard-ass when everyone already thinks you're a prettyboy. And it always seemed like too much of a bother trying to get over my inhibitions about it, about what it would _mean_. It just wasn't worth the trouble.

Only sometimes I have dreams about…someone.

Anyway, Huggy seems to have no such image problems. He's the brightest peacock on the block, and it always makes me smile when I see him. Except I'm not smiling tonight. I'm heavy with ghosts, and I need a beer, badly.

I belly up to the bar and give Huggy a sorry excuse for a smile, and he disengages himself from the foxy chick he's chatting up to come straight over.

"How's it going, Hug?" I ask him. Those warm brown eyes of his always see too much, and tonight is no exception.

"Goin' better with me, I suspect, than it is with you, my friend. You look like my momma's cat did after my cousin Wallace's Doberman got done with him."

"That the same cousin who used to pull that old 'injured pedestrian' scam?"

"Yeah. Wallace ended up in the pen for a little while. Found himself Jesus. Now he won't talk to me anymore." Huggy sighs.

"Sorry to hear that, man." I'm looking down at the bar, wishing there were a cold one sitting right in front of me and, like magic, a glass appears there with a pitcher beside it.

"Looks to me like you're in need of more than a pint, my pale brother," Huggy says, and his face creases up comically in sympathy.

There's a spot in my heart, frozen dead by visiting the Grossmans, that warms right up again. Huggy can do that. It's like I said: magic.

"Thanks, Hug," I say, putting all my gratitude into it, and I pour myself a glass. Huggy starts telling me about his cousin Leonard, the one with three wives (unofficially), and fourteen kids, and a mint green El Dorado with leather paneling that he uses to shuttle back and forth between them. I keep drinking and smiling a little. I finish off the first pitcher in short order, and Huggy looks resigned as he draws me another, his other hand held out expectantly for my keys. I hand them over.

"So what's got you hanging your head, amigo?" he asks me when he sets the pitcher in front of me, and maybe the beer has loosened me up some, or maybe it's the way Huggy pats my arm, anchoring me to the bar, but I answer him.

"I went to go see the Grossmans today," I tell him. I take another sip of my beer, feeling that sudden craving for a smoke again. "You know, the ones that—"

"I know who they are," Huggy says pointedly, reminding me that he was the one that called say Gillian was in danger.

"Sorry, yeah," I say.

"I'm the one who's sorry, Hutch," he says with remorse in his voice. "If only I'd found out about it a little sooner...."

And it scratches some sort of itch, when he says that. I mean, what about that, anyway? How come Huggy happened to hear about it? I realize I've never asked him.

"You never told me how you happened to find out about Gillian, Hug." I'm looking up at that moment and I see something cross his face, but it's gone too fast. Huggy is a master at hiding.

"Just, you know, word on the street," he says, and it's there again, this time in his voice. He's lying. Huggy is lying to me.

I can't take that. Not today.

"Don't lie to me, Hug," I say to him, real quietly, because right then I don't have the best control over my voice. I look down again. Huggy's hand is wrapped around his own glass, the long fingers absently stroking the moisture that's condensed on the outside. It's a curiously nervous gesture. My heart thuds a little.

"Hutch," he says finally, "you know I'm you're friend, right?"

Any news that starts off with that question cannot be good. But I nod. Because I do know it.

"So, trust me when I say you don't need to dig any deeper on this."

I shake my head. "You don't get it, Huggy. I can't let it go," I say, frustrated, "because she won't let _me_ go. It's like she's following me around with these sad eyes saying 'Why did I have to die, Hutch?'"

And I know I sound a little drunk, and maybe a little crazy, but that's what it feels like.

Huggy looks at me for a second, and then he gives my arm another quick pat. "Let's just say your _friends_ care about you, Hutch, and were worried you were walking into a jam, ya dig?"

And just like that, the light bulb that's been flickering dimly in the recesses of my addled brain flares into a spotlight. I'm blinded. And burned. I don't know how to describe it, exactly, except that it feels like the world has just dropped out from under me. Because there aren't many people I know who give enough of a damn about me to get messed up in this. One of them is standing right in front of me, looking at me with worried eyes.

And the other.…

I dig into my pocked and throw a twenty on the bar and stand up fast. I have to grab onto the stool for a second when the quick move proves to be a mistake.

"Call me a cab, Hug," I say, and he reaches for the phone.

I tell him I'm going home to sleep it off. But I'm not.

ooOoo

All the way over to Starsky's I'm beating myself up for being such a damned fool. He told me as much. Of course, at the time I was out of my mind. Gillian was lying there, still warm, but so very dead, when Starsky told me he'd seen her at Grossman's.

But I'd forgotten all about it in my grief, and my rage, and maybe I didn't want to think about what it meant, how much it stung that Starsky had known before I did.

But it's just now occurring to me. He _knew_. And he'd told Huggy.

The cab pulls up and I give the driver the very last of my cash. I don't see the Torino out in front, but I'm willing to wait. All night, if need be. I know Starsky will have to be back by morning, because we were supposed to meet for breakfast before going to the auto shop.

I use my key to get in. It feels like Starsky just recently left; there's a hint of shower steam in the air. I lie down on his couch to wait. My head is pounding, a combination of the beer, and the anger, and there's fear in there, too. I don't understand the source. Just that Starsky _knew_. And I don't know why, but it scares me that he didn't tell me.

It scares me a lot.

ooOoo

"What're you doing here?" Starsky's voice wakes me from a restless sleep. I was tangled in something, unsubstantial but clinging, and I couldn't get free.

"Needed to talk to you," I say, my voice sleep-rough. "What time is it?"

Starsky snaps on a lamp and I look at the clock blurrily. It's after two a.m.

"Hot date?" I ask him.

He runs his hand up the back of his neck. "Yeah," he says, turning away. He doesn't seem too thrilled to have me here. And for a second I wonder what I _am_ doing there, and then it comes back to me.

"You knew about Gillian. You knew and you didn't tell me."

He looks surprised, and caught out. But he rallies quick. "I told you when...in her apartment, that I'd seen her at Grossman's."

"But you _didn't_ tell me about her before she died. How long did you know?" Now that my mouth is rolling it doesn't want to stop. "How long did you sit there, listening to me go on and on about her, making a goddamn fool of myself, when you knew my girl was a fucking hooker? Huh, Starsk?"

And, God, it hurts just like it did when he first told me. It's that raw. I could never let it go, because of _him._ Jesus, it's not Gillian I'm still angry at.

It's him.

He looks tongue-tied, and he rubs his neck again. I notice he has deep hickey there on the side, and it angers me even more for some reason.

"It wasn't long, Hutch—"

"Long enough," I say, and I get to my feet to stand over him, shooting words like bullets. "Long enough for you to tell Huggy, to get him to dig up the word on my girlfriend. You told him, but not me. Why? Why didn't you—" The words are bottlenecked in my throat and I swallow. "Why did you let her—" But I can't say the rest, because Starsky looks miserable. His shoulders are hunched as if he expects me to hit him.

I back off.

But it's too late, he's taken it on, and his shoulders drop now, like there's a weight pressing them down.

"I didn't-I didn't mean it," I whisper, stuttering over it like a kid tripping over a gopher hole.

Starsky shrugs and drops down into his easy chair, putting his head in his hands.

"No, you're right. It was my fault. My fault she died."

I shake my head but he doesn't see. "No," I croak out.

"I went to her, Hutch. I was going to try to get her to leave town. I thought if she just left, you wouldn't ever have to know. I tried to give her money—"

"You _what_?" Now that he's talking, part of me doesn't want to hear it. But it's too late.

"I tried to...to pay her off, I guess you could say." He lifts his head and stares at me. "But, I swear to God, Hutch, when I confronted her, she didn't want it. She wouldn't take it. She told me she loved you, and didn't that count for anything? And I knew then that she did. She really did, Hutch."

It hurts to hear him say that. It hurts so deep in my gut I have to sit down again and bend over it.

But at the same time, it fixes something, someplace I didn't know was broken. I wasn't that far off, then. She wasn't lying, not always.

Starsky continues softly, "I told her you would have to know. And she promised me she would tell you that night. I don't know what happened after I left, but whatever it was set Grossman off. Maybe she told him she was leaving, I don't know. But her bags were already packed when Huggy sent me over there."

"She went over to Grossman's," I tell him tiredly. "She got into a fight with his mother, and Olga ordered him to kill her."

Starsky nods and looks down again. "Hutch, I'm-I'm sorry. If I'd told you, maybe you could've stopped it. Maybe, at least, you would've been there when Grossman came after her—"

I break in. "It's not your fault. She was a big girl, Starsk. She made some stupid moves. Like not telling me to begin with. Anyway, it doesn't matter," I say, and he looks up, his eyes wide. "You told me yourself: I can't deal with what might've happened, just what _did_."

He nods at that and sighs. "I swear to God, Hutch, I was trying to help...it sounds so stupid, but part of why I didn't tell you was I couldn't stand to think of you finding out about her. I wanted to save you from that."

My heart gives a dull thump at the words. He'd been hurting, for having to hurt me. And I pay him back by throwing it in his face. I think I really don't deserve a friend like him.

"It's okay. Okay, Starsk." And it is, it's okay, finally. Or as much as it can be.

Suddenly I'm exhausted. The day is catching up with me. I turn on the couch and stretch out my legs, letting my arm rest over my eyes.

"Is it all right if I crash here?" I ask him. "I'm beat, and my wheels are back at the Pits."

"Sure, no problem," comes his deep voice, and I hear him walking around, getting ready for bed. Familiar sounds. Then a blanket drops on top of me, and I pull it over my shoulders, mumbling my thanks.

The light turns off, and then I feel the pressure of his body close by. I open my eyes again, wondering.

Starsky's kneeling down next to the couch. I can't see his eyes, only his silhouette. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and then I get it. He needs that reassurance. That touch we give each other that everything is all right. I pull my hand out from under the blanket and squeeze his arm really tight. He lowers his head, and for one totally crazy second I think, _Jesus, is he going to...?_ But no, he just butts his forehead gently against mine, our familiar gesture. Then he rises and goes to his room.

I'm falling sleep when it registers that he smelled kind of strange. The lingering scent of his aftershave seems unfamiliar, and I wonder idly if he's switched brands, before I drift off.

When I dream, it's not of Gillian.

ooOoo

I wake up the next morning with that clean feeling behind my eyes, like I get when I've had a bad migraine and finally wake up in no pain, everything seeming so bright and open. It's like I can see again.

The first thing I see is the back end of my partner, who's moving around the kitchen making something that smells wonderful. I roll off the couch and head over to the bathroom to shower. While I'm shaving I can hear Starsky whistling something. Maybe he's feeling it, too. He was carrying something heavy for too long.

Carrying me.

I borrow his toothbrush and come out to rummage in his bedroom for some clothing. His briefs are a little tight on me but I'm used to it. He won't miss a pair. I don't know why he has so many, anyway—God knows he hardly ever wears them.

I hear him come up behind me as I dig around. All his clean laundry is in a big pile on the floor of his closet, and I'm bent over, sorting through it trying to find some sweatpants, when I hear him say, "You still up for getting your brakes done?"

There's something funny in his voice that I can't identify, and I straighten quickly and turn. Whatever it was, it's already gone from his face; he's looking at me calmly, a spatula in his hand.

"Of course," I say. "And lunch is on me. Wherever you want."

His eyebrows pop up in surprise, and he smiles fast, there and then gone again. I really have been a bastard, lately, if he's that amazed. I'll have to make it up to him.

He just stands there, looking at me for a while, and I say, "Uh. I'm gonna get dressed."

That jolts him out of wherever he's been, and he jerks his head. "Yeah, okay. Breakfast is almost ready."

I nod, then I go digging again.

The day is wonderful, the best I've had in a good, long time. We pick up my car at the Pits and then drive out to the shop. While we're waiting to deal with the mechanic, Starsky starts on a roll about the terrible suspension on my 'tub' and how one of these days it's going to flatten his ass end, and I tease him that it would take a hydraulic press even to make a dent. He starts laughing, so hard that I start to get worried he'll hyperventilate. But I'm smiling, too, and wondering what it is about his laugh that always makes the world seem like a simpler place. A better place.

Starsky opts for the Pits, so while my car is getting its brake work done we head over there. It's early. The place has just opened for lunch, and the grill isn't even warmed up yet, so we have Bobbie make us a couple of sandwiches. We're just starting to eat when Huggy rolls in looking the worse for wear. His eyes are bloodshot, and he's walking kind of funny.

Well, funnier than he usually does.

"I don't believe you, man," is the first thing he says, speaking to Starsky. "I'd've thought you'd be in traction after last night, and here you are looking all bright-eyed."

I look over at Starsky, who for some reason is giving Huggy a warning look.

"You two paint the town last night?" I ask. If so, it must've been after I cabbed it over to Starsky's and crashed.

"Yeah, well. We found this new club where there was some good dancing," Starsky says.

"And this guy didn't stop shaking his tail feathers all night long," Huggy says. He squeezes into the booth next to Starsky and looks over at me.

"You ain't looking too bad, neither, Blondie. Especially after that load you tied on."

Now it's my turn to warn off Huggy, but Starsky's already on me.

"You were drinking last night?"

I shrug and take another bite of my sandwich.

Huggy's eyes are solemn. "You work it out okay, what I told you last night?"

I nod. But I want to forget about last night. Today isn't about ghosts.

"So maybe you can take me to this new club," I say, trying to change the subject.

Huggy looks alarmed, and I look over at Starsky, who's trying, not too successfully, not to laugh.

"What? My dancing's not _that_ bad."

"Oh, no. Not _that_ bad," Starsky says, sounding a little hysterical.

"Well," I say grumpily, "I can at least sit in the corner and watch all the pretty ladies. Maybe get lucky. Take me there next weekend?"

"Sure, Hutch. Maybe." Starsky's smile is still on, but his eyes tell a different story. I look at him questioningly, but he just shrugs and picks up his sandwich.

The phone rings just then, and Huggy gets up to get it. We finish our lunch and slide out of the booth, and I'm reaching into my pocket when I suddenly remember I have no cash left. I look helplessly at Starsky, who starts to look peeved, but just then Huggy appears again and hands me a ten-spot.

"Your change from last night," he says, and I hand it right back to him, grinning at Starsky, who snorts a laugh.

Like I said, it's a good day.

ooOoo

For some reason we both land back at Venice Place after we pick up the car. It's like neither of us wants the day to be over. I suggest a game of hoops, and we walk down to the beach and the basketball courts down by the pier.

We play it rough, a lot of banging around and body contact. It's how we've always played. It's how I like it.

For one thing, it gives me an excuse to touch him.

So we're horsing around, and every so often I'll grab him around the waist and commit an outrageous foul, and he's laughing, and at one point he tries to do the same, but I'm too heavy for him to swing me around, so he just collapses on top of me, trying to drag me down.

And Christ, it feels good. His whole body, draped over mine....

To be honest, I don't think about it most of the time, the low-level hum of want I've always felt since I first met him. Back at the Academy, before I got to know him, I actually considered doing something about it, feeling him out, as it were. But then we became buddies, and I put it aside. Even more than Jack, I couldn't believe it was something Starsky would be interested in.

Lately, though, it's been more than just a background noise. The feeling has been ambushing me at the weirdest times. And, I mean, even before Gillian.

Hell, maybe I'd been lying to myself. Maybe that was why Gillian felt like my last chance, after all.

After the game, we walk back to my apartment. Starsky sticks around but doesn't say much, just hangs out on the deck with me, reading one of my old magazines while I water the plants. Then I grab us a couple of beers, and we play a game of chess. I'm distracted by my thoughts, so I'm not incredibly focused on the game. Maybe that's why he captures my queen so fast.

It's all over then but for the running, and the 'mopping up' as he calls it. While he's backing me into a corner, he starts telling me about the article he's just read in my _Scientific American._

"So there's this type of wasp that only eats a particular kind of caterpillar," he tells me. "This wasp can only see the caterpillar if it's moving. And the caterpillar doesn't want to be eaten. So it needs to be able to tell when a wasp is around."

I nod that I'm listening while I scoot my king out of harm's way. I take a swig of my beer.

He moves his knight and I'm in trouble again. "The caterpillar has some hairs on its back that go stiff whenever they pick up the particular frequency that the wings of the wasp makes when it flies. When that happens, the caterpillar freezes so it can't be detected."

"Oh yeah?" I say. I've got six pawns left, and they're looking beleaguered. I make a careful move with my remaining rook.

"That's not the best part, though. The best part is, both of 'em are changing at exactly the same rate. Every year the wasps can detect motion from a little farther away. And every year the caterpillars become that much more sensitive to the sound, so they know when to be invisible."

He takes my rook with his bishop. "Check."

"What happens when one of 'em doesn't stay ahead of the game?" I ask him absently. I make the only move I can, backing my king into the corner.

There's silence for so long that I look up. Starsky is looking at me intently.

"The wasp can only eat this one kinda caterpillar. So, if he doesn't keep up, he starves." His eyes are dark in the shadows. God, he looks beautiful.

I love him something crazy, and that's the scary truth.

He doesn't seem to notice I'm staring at him. He says, "And the caterpillar...if he doesn't adapt, he's a goner."

"Yeah, huh?" I'm not really listening. Instead, I'm thinking about the shirt he's wearing, that deep red. He looks so good in red. Or maybe he makes _red_ look good. Either way, I'm in trouble. Red is trouble.

"Yup. The caterpillar doesn't stand a chance." He makes his move. "Checkmate."

He says it kind of strangely, but right at that moment I can't think about it, because I'm starting to get hard in my pants. I grunt an acknowledgement of my defeat and get off the bench to stretch my legs and get away from him. Get away from my thoughts.

"You hungry?" I say over my shoulder as I finish my beer. "I can order us something in."

When he doesn't answer, I turn around. He's staring at the board.

"Nah," he says. "I should hit it."

"Yeah. Long day," I say. "And tomorrow, we gotta figure out how to bust that Amboy."

Starsky mumbles something and heads back inside. I follow behind him to the door, handing him his gun and holster. As I slap it into his hand, I say, "Well, g'night partner."

He looks at me, and I'm confused by the intensity in his eyes. Then he blinks and says, "G'night."

After he leaves, I go to my desk and start sorting through the mail that's been piling up over the past month. It seems I'm never home long enough to deal with it, so most of my bills are paid automatically by the bank, a change I had to make when one red notice too many led to my phone getting cut off.

In the stack, I'm surprised to find a letter from Duluth, dated almost three weeks earlier. The return address reads 'Mrs. Eudora Mitchell.'

I get a chill, seeing it. She's already paid me back the transport fees for Jack's body, so that can't be what this is about.

Instead of just ripping it open, a strange impulse takes me and I dig through my desk for the fancy letter-opener Vanessa once gave me, an ornate thing with a malachite handle, very pretty and far too impractical.

Kind of like Vanessa, actually.

I find it, and use it to carefully slice open the letter. Inside is another envelope, accompanied by a small note on heavy cardstock.

_  
_

_The attached is a letter Jack left with our attorneys shortly after he became ill. He asked that it be delivered to you upon his passing._

_Thank you again for assisting our family with Jack's remains._

_Yours most cordially,_

_Eudora Mitchell_

For just a second I'm tempted not to even open Jack's letter. Mysterious notes from dead friends aren't something I feel up to handling right now.

I've been trying so hard to rid myself of the ghosts.

But I can't resist the pull of it, mainly because so much feels unfinished about the way Jack died—so suddenly, and before I really got to connect with him again. I use the letter opener, and unfold the page.

``   
_Dear Hutch,_   


``   
_Hey buddy, long time no see. And even longer, I guess, because if you're reading this, then I'm gone. It won't be too long now, they tell me, although you know I've always been one for bucking the odds._   


``   
_I always wondered what you got up to after that summer. We were both such crappy letter writers, I think I got maybe one note from you while you were in school, and then it was like you dropped off the face of the earth._   


``   
_Me, I did it, made it through medical school. Amazing, huh? I don't know how I managed to do it, especially without you around to kick my ass. You always did believe in me. And now I'm a doctor. Or I was—a resident, at least—until I got slapped with this ugly monster in my head. And it is ugly, I'll tell you that. I've seen the scans, and it looks like some hulking spider sitting up there. A hungry one._   


``   
_So I guess you're wondering why I'm writing you. Thing is, all these years have gone by like nothing, and I still think about you, a lot. And that one summer. I think that was the best summer of my life, you know? And it was mainly because of you._   


``   
_There was only one thing that could've made it more perfect, and I was too chickenshit to try for it. See, when you're looking at the door to a very long eternity, it's tempting to look back and figure out where you messed up in your life._   


``   
_For me, it was this one day when we were getting changed after our shift, and you caught me looking at you, and I think, but I'm not sure, that maybe you were feeling like I was. But back then, it seemed like every day was forever, and that there were always more of them ahead._   


``   
_Now, of course, I know that's not true._   


``   
_Anyway, if you never thought of it like that, of me, then this letter will probably weird you out some. But if you ever did, I just wanted to let you know, before I go, that you were the best friend I ever had, and that was maybe the only thing that kept me from trying something. Because you were so damned beautiful to me, and I didn't want to lose you._   


``   
_But I did, anyway, didn't I? Life just seems to do that, when you're not looking. Or even if you are._   


``   
_I'm sorry I missed my chance._   


``   
_Goodbye, Hutch._   


``   
_Love,_   


``   
_Jack_   


I have trouble reading it through to the end. It might have something to do with the blurring in my eyes and the pounding in my chest.

And I'm learning something right now—that it hurts to know what might've been. It hurts a lot.

I drop the letter, go outside to the deck, and sit next to the chessboard, breathing in the cool night air, hoping it will ease the ache in my heart. My eyes drop down to the board, where my king still sits boxed in on all sides. Trapped.

The magazine is where Starsky left it, and my hand feels shaky as I pick it up. I'm not sure why I do. Maybe to distract myself. I notice it's open to the article Starsky was telling me about, the one about the caterpillar and the wasp, and my eye catches a line of it.

And suddenly I can't breathe at all.

I hear Starsky's voice, saying, _'The caterpillar doesn't stand a chance.'_

Can one guy be so stupid that the truth can up and smack him with a hammer and he still just shakes his head and moves on? I think so. I think I'm walking, bumbling proof.

Saved only by a ghost.

I'm dressed and in the LTD before I can start thinking about it and maybe screw it all up.

And I bring the magazine with me.

ooOoo

Starsky doesn't answer at first, and I'm tempted to use my key, but then I hear a grumbling, "Who the hell?"

"It's me," I say. Now that I'm actually standing here in the cold dark, I'm starting to get the shakes. In fact, my legs are trembling so hard I have to lean on the doorframe. Starsky opens up and takes a quick step back, surprised to find me so close, maybe.

"Starsk," I say, and then my throat claps shut on me, stealing what I was going to say. Which is maybe for the best, because right now Starsky is staring at me as if I've gone completely screwloose.

"Hutch, what is it?" He grabs my arm and I realize I'm swaying a little. I pull myself together and move forward until I'm inside, hearing him shut the door behind me.

"Siddown, for Christ's sake," he says.

But I need to keep my momentum. "No, I'm all right," I say. "Gimme a minute."

He stands patiently, still looking at me quizzically. He's wearing his blue robe, the one that goes so incredibly with his eyes. And I want to lunge toward him and do it with my mouth and my hands, because my voice is bound to fail me and, in spite of evidence to the contrary, when it comes to certain situations, I can't say anything for shit.

But it wouldn't be fair to him, because if I've got it wrong, he'll have a world of embarrassment when he has to turn me down.

So instead I look down at the magazine, which is suddenly shaking so badly I can't read the text. But it doesn't matter, because the sentence is already embedded in my memory.

"Says here," I say, my voice rough, "'The kill itself is like a deadly erotic dance, the stinger of the wasp plunging repeatedly into the soft flesh of the caterpillar's body.'"

I look up, and Starsky's eyes have widened, and darkened, somehow, as if the light itself were afraid. He licks his lips.

"Sounds like fun," I say, almost in a whisper.

And then he's on me, faster than I can catch one breath, and the impact throws me back until I clutch at him, using his weight as a counter-balance. And then his mouth is on mine, and I'm singing inside. I got it right.

"Hutch," he whispers when he moves his lips away for second, and then he's back, his tongue coming out to meet mine, and he tastes like beer, and pizza, and something dark and woody that I can't get enough of, so I put my hands on his face and go deeper, sliding into his mouth, into Starsky's mouth.

We stand there, kissing, both of us making sounds that would shame a porno film director, until I feel like my legs can't hold me up anymore. I'm turning to jelly under Starsky's hands, which are on my ass, squeezing me tight.

"Bed," he suggests, panting into my mouth, and I nod and stumble to follow him, my cock hard in my cords, straining at the fabric as if it can burrow right out. He flicks on the light by the bed, and I smile, realizing he wants to see. Starsky wants to see me.

I come up behind him and put my hands over his shoulders to grasp the collar of his robe, pulling it off of him in one move so that he's naked before me, all that beautiful skin. And then I press up behind him and let my hands roam all over his chest. He moans and tilts his head back for a kiss, but soon grows impatient and turns to start yanking at my clothing.

"Get 'em all off. Now, Hutchinson," he says, only a slight tease to the command. I get out of my clothes even faster than I got into them, and then stand there, waiting. It's like I've run out of script. I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. This is my partner, for chrissake. I can't just grab him and....

But he's got his own ideas, and one of them has me on my back on the bed before I can blink, his body moving to fit against mine as if they were made to interlock; here, his thick, stiff cock pressing hard at the juncture of my groin and thigh, one leg tangled between mine, and the other hooking around behind me until we are moving puzzle pieces, hard and slick and sliding. God, it's like we were meant for this.

And the strength of him is intoxicating, the brutal way his hands clutch my shoulders, digging in, sliding under my ass to squeeze again. I groan and shift my hips, shoving up against him, my cock on fire for the sweet pressure of his skin. He moans my name and kisses me again, and I'm done for, thrusting and arching against his hard flesh until I start to come, and I throw my head back and feel his teeth on my neck as I start spurting between us, the pleasure singing in my clenching balls and my pulsing cock.

"Oh, God. God," I'm saying, shaking with it. Starsky's mouth is at my ear now, and I can hear every groan amplified as he continues to thrust against me. I reach around him and slide my hands down to his ass, grabbing it like it belongs to me, and I let my fingers slip between his cheeks.

He moans again, directly into my ear, and then he goes still and groans, "Ohhhh." And then I feel him coming against me, and it's like I've just figured out my purpose in life. To make Starsky come. To hear him make sounds like that while I give him pleasure.

Starsky slumps to the side, and the air hits the semen cooling on me, making me shiver. I'm coated in it.

I can't remember ever being happier.

"Jesus," Starsky says, and I turn my head to meet his eyes. "When you get wise, you really get wise."

I laugh and turn onto my side so I can wrap an arm around him loosely. I'm thinking, I should freak, I just made love to a man. To Starsky. But I feel too damned good to worry about it.

And, anyway, it was his idea.

His words echo my thoughts. "What took you so long, huh? I thought I was going to have to send up one of those Seminole flags."

"Semaphore, you bonehead," I correct him, realizing an instant later he's yanking my chain. I don't know why I keep falling for that, time and again.

Except, then Starsky laughs, and I know why.

"I wanted this for a long time," I tell him. I feel the heat in my face as I say, "It just took a good blow to the head for me to figure out that maybe you wanted it, too."

"Yeah, well, I've always thought you were pretty slow, Blondie." But it doesn't really sting. Then Starsky grins. "You know what this means, don't you?"

I shake my head.

"Means we're going dancing next weekend. See, Huggy and I found this great new disco...."

About a million pieces fall into place for me, but I'm too blissed out to deal with it. And, anyway, I don't care if Starsky's been messing around with a hundred guys before me. His roaming days are about to be severely curtailed.

He just doesn't know it yet.

I smile, but then he kisses it away.

ooOoo

I wake up and realize with embarrassment that I slipped into sleep while Starsky was kissing me. Considering it's only the second time ever that he's done so, you'd think the novelty would've kept me interested. But it'd been an awfully long day.

I turn my head and run smack into the bottomless blue of his eyes. His hand is moving in my hair, stroking lightly, as if he's been biding his time.

Like he has been.

"I'm sorry," I say, and he looks scared for a second, so I rush to finish. "Sorry it took me so long, sorry I've been riding you so hard for shit that wasn't even your fault. Sorry I let it all get to me."

He sighs. "Yeah, you're gonna have to get a handle on that, Hutch, or it's gonna burn you out."

But I can't see that happening. Not as long as I have him with me. And now that he's really _with_ me, the whole world seems as light as a feather.

Then he rolls on top of me to kiss me some more, his cock already hard against my leg. And he's so solid on me, and heavy.

But I welcome the weight.

 _Finis_.

December 10, 2005  
San Francisco, CA


End file.
